Vanishing Act (14 page)

"Maybe we can find a village for you," she said. "One with a lot of nice stones."

He blew out a breath sadly. "You know, I actually forgot for a couple of hours."

She held his arm. "Good," she said. "That’s the way it has to be." She looked up at him critically as they walked. "You know, I think you’re going to be all right. Once we get you settled, you might actually be better off than you ever were."

"I don’t know," he said.

"Happier, I mean." She squinted at him critically. "You’re no accountant."

They walked up the steps to the front porch of the house and entered. She had not locked the door. She walked in without turning on the lights, and he didn’t either. He went into his room, took off his shoes, and sat on the bed. He took a deep breath and blew it out in a sigh before he became aware that she was in the room with him.

She stood beside the bed, the moonlight through the curtain illuminating her as she unbuttoned her blouse. The light shone through it as she pulled it out of the top of her jeans and slipped it off her shoulders.

"I know your dream," he said quietly.

"Do you?" she said.

"You dreamed we were going to be lovers."

She stepped out of her jeans, then her panties, and began to unbutton his shirt carefully, one button after another, with a slow inevitability. When she reached his waist, she unbuckled his belt and waited for him to stand. Her hands were slow and soft and soothing as she stripped the last of his clothes off him, and then she ducked into his arms and her hair draped on his chest, still cold from the night air outside.

15

Felker awoke to the sound of a bird making its first quiet call, somewhere far off. He was alone in the bed, and there was no sound inside the house. He rolled to the side of the bed to look down at the floor and saw that her clothes weren’t there.

He listened again, then sat up, swung his legs to the floor, and walked to the closet, where he had hung his backpack. It was still there, and the money was still inside. He found his clothes on the chair, where he would have put them. He was fighting the possibility that it hadn’t happened. He went to the window and looked out into the gray light, but there were only the empty fields and a few acres of woods about a quarter mile off. He looked down at the bed, but her side showed no sign that anyone had slept on it. He bent down and put his face into the pillow. He could smell Jane’s hair, a very light scent of flowers, but sweat too, a sweet, musky smell that made her real again and brought back the feel of her in the dark.

"What are you doing?" It was her voice.

He turned and straightened. "I was trying to identify the perfume."

"I’ll have to ask Jimmy. It’s his shampoo."

Felker shrugged. "There’s more to Jimmy than meets the eye." He looked around him. "I guess there would have to be."

He followed her into the kitchen. She was wearing a man’s red plaid wool shirt that hung down over her jeans, and her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. "Where have you been?"

"I went out to get some eggs for breakfast," she said. She pointed to a basket on the counter beside the door.

"You walked to the store already? What’s open at this hour?"

She laughed. "This is a farm. You just go out and lift up a couple of chickens." She started to slip out of the big hunting shirt, and glanced at him. She could see he was staring at the way her breasts stood out under her T-shirt. She raised an eyebrow.

"Come on." He took her hand and led her into the bedroom.

"I thought you’d be hungry," she said. Her voice was low and tense, almost a whisper. "I brought breakfast."

"This is more important," he said. "If I die today, I won’t care if I had two more eggs."

Then his hands moved up under her T-shirt and were on her breasts, and then he was slipping the T-shirt up over her head, and he tossed it somewhere, and the jeans were coming down over her hips, and he seemed to be everywhere at once, touching her and kissing her in a way that made her ache until she kissed him back.

She had needed to hear him say he wanted to, so she could be sure that it wasn’t just something people did because they had been to bed together once, and knew that if they let that cold-light-of-dawn feeling go on for any longer it would go on forever. Then she forgot all of that because none of it mattered at all. It hadn’t happened. What was going on now was what she would have imagined while she was out walking in the dark morning, if she had let the longing take the form of a wish. He must have been thinking of it too, because there was nothing tentative, no hesitation. What they thought, they seemed to think at the same time, and the impulses were already movements before they knew. They drew together to let their lips meet in slow, moist, leisurely kisses that neither of them started or stopped because it hadn’t been an intention, just an attraction they hadn’t resisted. Their bodies had learned to know each other in the course of the long night, while the things they said to each other were still the words of strangers. She accepted it because there was no other choice, and she began to let herself feel glad instead of ashamed that this had happened.

Later they ate breakfast. It was better with the sun up and light bouncing around the bright white kitchen, with the smells of fried eggs and hot coffee and the busy chirping of sparrows outside the window. "Want to have a picnic?" asked Jane.

"I’d like that," he answered.

Just as they were packing their lunch, they heard the first drops popping on the roof. It rained for three days. The cornfield outside turned to a rich, muddy soup and the grass in the fields turned an impossible emerald-green.

On the fourth day the rain stopped, and on the sixth they woke up to find that the world had changed again. It was the first week of May now, and the small half-inch buds that had been folded tightly on the branches of the trees exploded into luminous light-green leaves.

The letter came on the seventh day. Jane began to clean the house.

16

It was morning, and they sat at the kitchen table trying to keep their eyes from settling on the two suitcases Jane had bought in Brantford.

Felker broke the silence. "Should we leave some money to pay for all the food and stuff?"

"No," she said. "There are rules about hospitality. Some time I’ll give Mattie a present."

"Like you did Wendell?"

"Yes."

"I know this is kind of an odd question, but what would happen if we just stayed here? Didn’t go on to another place?"

"Eventually something would happen. You’d get sick and have to go to a hospital, or maybe the government agent here would notice you and start making quiet inquiries, or you’d get a speeding ticket." She smiled sadly. "We’ve got to get you settled."

There was a knock on the door. Jane went to open it, and she saw Carlton the Mohawk on the porch. Felker stood up and took their bags out to the truck. They drove to Mattie’s farmhouse, and Jane ran inside.

Mattie was at her stove, and a soap opera was on the television set. "Hi, Janie," she said. "Leaving us so soon?"

"Yes."

Mattie came up and gave her a big hug. Jane could smell chicken feathers and flour and fresh air somehow caught in the big, soft apron during the early morning chores. When she held Jane out at arm’s length to look at her, she said, "You’ve been crying."

"Don’t be silly."

"Yes, you have. Not just now, maybe, but at night in the dark." She nodded at the door. "Did he see you cry?"

Jane shook her head.

"Smart girl," she said. "Keep it that way. Men don’t like problems they can’t solve. It just makes them mad."

Jane gave Mattie a kiss on the cheek, handed her Jimmy’s keys, and said, "See you, Mattie."

Carlton drove them north through Galt and picked up the 401 above it, then rode into Toronto on a stream of thick, fast-moving traffic. As soon as he had made the turn into the airport loop, Carlton said, "What parking lot should I go to?"

"None of them," said Jane. "Drop us off in front of Air Canada." When he pulled up to the curb, Jane said, "Be good."

"We’ll miss you," said Carlton.

As Jane and Felker approached the terminal doors, Jane spoke under her breath. "I’ll do this."

She paid for the tickets with a credit card that said Janet Foley and specified that the other ticket was for Daniel Foley. She checked their two suitcases and then gave Felker his ticket as they walked across the lobby.

"Take this," she said. "The gate is 42 and the flight leaves in forty minutes. Go into a men’s room and lock yourself in a cubicle until then. I’ll see you on board."

"Is that necessary?"

"Do it," she said. "This is the last place where a sensible person would look for you. Once we’re out of here, they’ve lost you forever."

He stepped into the first men’s room they came to, and Jane walked on as though she had nothing to do with him. And so I don’t, she thought. She bought a magazine in the gift shop and went to Gate 42. The magazine was just the right size to hold in front of her while she watched for the wrong sort of men to show up at the gate.

There were a couple of Canadian naval officers traveling in uniform. No matter how resourceful the ones chasing Felker were, they couldn’t have anticipated far enough in advance for the uniforms. There were eight Pakistanis, three African-Americans, nine Chinese. The men she had seen that night had been light-skinned. The most suspicious people were a young couple who appeared to stare around them a lot, but then she saw that they were staring because their two children were being allowed to play on the seats a couple of rows away, supposedly by themselves. Two men appeared who were distinct possibilities, but then they sat down and she saw that one of them had a pair of leather-soled shoes with an imprint on the sole that said Eaton’s. An American trying to look like a Canadian might buy something Canadian to wear, but not shoes. She calmed down. As a bonus, she noticed that on page 127 of the magazine there was a camel coat that an actual living woman might like to wear. She folded the comer of the page and went on with her vigil.

The airline functionaries arrived at the gate a few minutes before time, set up shop at the desk, and began to make announcements into the microphone, first in English, then in French. After the second one, Felker drifted in. She put down her magazine and scanned the faces. The only ones who stared at him and pretended not to were two teenaged girls by the window who had some sort of hormonal interest in men who looked like him but probably still had an inaccurate idea of why this should be so. There was something to be said for locking them up in convent schools until they knew how to conjugate lots of foreign verbs, she thought.

The next announcement came, and she felt reassured. "Now boarding." She waited until he was in line so she could watch his back, but she still saw nobody who had any interest in him.

She sidestepped along the aisle inside the plane, past people stowing things in the overhead compartments and taking off coats, and sat down beside him. When the plane had bumped along up the runway and taken off, he leaned close to her and said, "They have very clean restrooms in Canada."

"Lucky you," she said.

"Why Vancouver?"

"For the next few hours, we eat, sleep, watch a movie, read magazines, whatever. We don’t talk."

"Not even about Vancouver?"

"No."

"Come on. Is there somebody on the plane who doesn’t know where it’s going?"

She smiled. "Please. Just do what I ask. It’ll be better."

"Will you make it up to me?"

"No."

"How about a neutral topic? Is that where Harry is?"

"Harry’s not a neutral topic."

Over the Great Plains she fell asleep. She slept without moving, simply fell into the darkness and stayed there until people started ignoring the pilot’s recitation of the rules about not standing up until the plane had stopped at the terminal.

Jane opened her eyes to see Felker watching her.

In the terminal, she hurried him to the baggage area without speaking. She was still watchful, but things had changed. She was no longer expecting to see the four men. Whatever had been chasing Felker hadn’t gotten big enough yet to send hundreds of watchers to all of the major airports on the continent, but soon it might. She just hoped that his boss hadn’t gotten tired of calling his answering machine by now. When he did, Felker could be on the list of people that the F.B.I., Interpol, and lots of local police would be watching for. Accountants who embezzled money from clients traveled.

When they made it out of the baggage area, she took a deep breath. It was late afternoon here, and the air was damp and fresh and cool. The airport was on an island, clutched between the two arms of the Fraser River, with the Strait of Georgia to the west. The first taxi in line pulled to the curb and the driver got out while the trunk popped open.

"Going to town?" he asked. He was short and blond and red-faced.

"Yes," said Jane. "The Westin Hotel."

The man snatched up the bags and set them in the trunk while Jane and Felker climbed inside. The cab pulled into traffic and took the route north on Granville Street. Jane stared out the window at the city. She liked being in a car, away from the lighted glass enclosure of the terminal.

When the taxi stopped at the hotel, she handed the driver one of the Canadian twenties she had picked up in Brantford. They let the bellman scoop up their bags and lead them to the front desk.

"Dr. and Mrs. Wheaton," said Jane, obliterating Janet and Daniel Foley. Everything was little jumps to make breaks in the trail. Never use the same name on the airline ticket and the hotel register. Never miss a chance to mislead.

"Yes," said the desk clerk, plucking a white card out of a box behind the desk with her long, manicured fingers. "We have your reservation right here."

Felker signed the card, and the desk clerk handed the keys to the bellman, who pushed a tall cart ahead of them with their bags on it, using it like a moving barricade to shield them all the way to the elevator. He opened the door for them and bustled around, switching lights on and off just long enough for Jane to slip Felker some money and for Felker to pass it to the bellman.

Everything was quick, smooth, and private. That was another part of the method. You used the facilities that had been invented to insulate the people who had a little money from the rough edges and annoyances. The Dr. Wheatons of the world didn’t have to wait for buses or stand in lines. They stepped out of one enclosure into another. For them waiting was irritating. For the John Felkers of the world it was dangerous.

Felker flopped backward onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. "Now I can ask, can’t I?"

"Ask what?" Jane crawled onto the bed next to him.

"Why Vancouver?"

"We’re here because this is where a man named Lewis Feng is. He’s the best."

’’The best what?"

"He’s the one I sent your pictures to."

"What’s he doing here?"

She sat up and looked down at him. ’’The people who need the best American passports and licenses and things aren’t in the United States. They’re on the outside looking in."

"Who are they?"

"Right now what’s driving this market is China," she said. ’’There are a lot of rich people in Hong Kong who don’t think it’s going to be a great place to be rich when the British lease runs out. Some are setting up to move to other places, maybe sending a couple of members of the family to establish residency, set up bank accounts, that sort of thing."

"So why do they need fake papers? A person with serious money can still buy a congressman and get real papers."

"Some of the richest probably do. A billionaire doesn’t have any trouble getting in anywhere, but then there’s family, retainers, friends, and if you’ve lived through, say, sixty years of Chinese history, you get used to the idea that governments change their minds fast. So a lot of them are hedging their bets, setting up a second place they can run to if the door closes, a second identity if the first one doesn’t hold up. The same thing is happening in Taiwan and Singapore. A lot of people who have made a lot of money in the past twenty years don’t want to bet their lives that China is always going to leave them alone, either."

"So all of a sudden Vancouver is the best place to get forged American papers?"

She shook her head. "God, no. Just one of the places. There’s Miami, where you have refugees, drug runners, and prospective revolutionaries, or ones who already tried and blew it. L.A. is the big money-laundering center now, and that means bagmen have to bring it in, and others have to get enough I.D. to do a lot of banking and buying. And New York, just because it’s New York and it’s still the best place to buy anything you want."

"That’s where we were heading, wasn’t it? New York."

"Yes. That was before." She didn’
_t
say before what.

"Why didn’t we just fly there?"

"This is safer for you."

"Why?"

"Because Lew Feng has a very specialized clientele. A lot of them may be gangsters, but if they are, they’re from Shanghai or someplace, not St. Louis. That means they aren’t interested in you and they don’t know anybody else who is. In New York I can’t guarantee that."

"All right," said Felker. "What do we do now?"

"I go out and make some more arrangements, buy you some clothes. You’re going to stay here, out of sight."

"How long?"

"We meet Lew Feng tomorrow night."